"I'm good now that I can hear you're better. What's the word on him now?"
"Still not much news. They want to try to wake him up tomorrow, depending on what his results look like. I guess we just wait and see."
"Well let me know as soon as you do. I'm still sitting in my office and I love it." His small chuckle on the end of the line was the most beautiful sound.
"Well I'm glad you approve. I had to chew some tail to make sure it all came out perfectly."
There are moments when things just hit you, when you're overcome with some emotion or idea or thought. I became overcome with the fact that I missed Connor. In such a short time I had grow so used to him, and how he made me feel. I felt empty not being able to see his smile and the sparkle in his eyes.
"I miss you Connor."
"I miss you too Madison."
"I miss you Connor." Came a high pitched, mocking voice. Leaning against my doorframe, arms folded across his chest was Brad. He sauntered into my office and my phone hit the floor with a loud thunk. I could hear Connor calling for me from the phone, but I couldn't move. I was paralyzed with fear. Brad reached down and picked up my phone.
"I'm sorry but Madison is going to be preoccupied for the next little while. Please don't call back later. Bye now." And he hung up. Brad turned the phone off and also took off the battery for extra measure.
"Sorry to have interrupted such a touching moment between you and the giant, but it's my turn now. You ruined my life Madison. You put me off and put me off and teased me and then when I finally decided to take what was rightfully mine the police came in to ruin the whole thing. I can never recover from the stain that put on my police record. There's not a chance you get to enjoy your life when you took mine away."
"This is about revenge Brad? Revenge for something wrong you did?"
"I thought I had gotten over you, over it. But when I saw you in that restaurant with that guy I suddenly wanted to make you pay. Because of the lies you told the police, I can't get a job, I can't get any woman within 50 feet of me. I blame you."
"You really think I deserved it, don't you? You think you did nothing wrong. Brad, I didn't want you and you forced yourself on me. More so than that you spent most of our relationship exercising your strength over me. I constantly had bruises and marks I had to cover up because you didn't know how to be a strong enough man for a strong woman. That's on you. It has nothing to do with me. You will always be labeled scum because it's the truth. Look at you now, here doing the same thing I'm sure. How did you know I'd be here?"
"I didn't. But when you weren't home I decided I'd see if you were working. It was even more exciting to see that your car was one of the few in the parking lot. I decided to take my chances. I could always say I was lost if I was questioned by anyone. Now, that's enough of my time wasted, Lord knows what that oaf your dating is going to do or who he is going to get here so I have to work quick. I don't intend to kill you at all Madison. I just intend to pay you back. I want your life to be as difficult as mine. I want you to struggle and fight to no avail. I just want you to know what it feels like. However, let's not get this twisted. I will kill you if I have to. If you make me, that is. So play fair and you'll get out of this alive."
He came towards me with a look in his eye that could only have been in the eyes of a crazy man. I didn't know what he wanted to do to me, what form his revenge would take but I decided this was way too much. I tried to sprint around the other side of the desk but he grabbed my wrist and nearly pulled my shoulder out of its socket.
"God dammit, don't fight me Madison or I swear to God I'll kill you." He was seething. He managed to get a secure hold to my other hand and used duct tape to tie them over my head. "Now, like I said, to be quick." Brad had thrown me on the floor and was currently sitting on my legs. I screamed as loud as I could the moment I felt his hands at my waist.
The scream must have startled him as he clamped a hand over my mouth and secured it with a handkerchief he pulled out of his pocket and stuffed in my mouth, followed by a piece of duct tape.
"Now you stupid bitch, let me work my magic." He taped my hands that were already tethered together to the leg of my desk. My eyes closed and I had silent tears running down my face. I couldn't handle this again, I couldn't go through it. I closed my eyes and willed my mind to go somewhere else, to go far away from what was going to happen in this room. I felt his hands unbutton my pants and slid them down my hips. He would have had to get up to slide them any further but he knew better.
"Oh no, You have to stay with me sweetheart. You spent a year of your life with me and never once put out without a fight. This time you're going to enjoy it." I held my eyes closed tighter than ever and cried out when the palm of his hand made contact with my left cheek. "Open your god damned eyes. You're going to enjoy this." I refused to open my eyes until finally I could not take the sound of the palm of his hand any longer. It was not the feeling, no, I had become comfortably numb from my head to my toes. The sound reminded my brain how bad it probably hurt.
I looked anywhere except his eyes. I could feel his shuffling and knew that he was taking off his own pants.
"It should have been magical and beautiful, but instead it had to be rough and difficult. Well I don't mind that sweetheart, trust me. You certainly are not the only one to witness that." My eyes got wide at the thought that I was not the only one. I felt worse for the other woman, or women than I did lying here. Maybe I did deserve this. Maybe I had not supplied him with what he needed and here was my punishment.
The tears silently streamed down my face as I felt my body moving to his psychotic rhythm. It wasn't long and I heard his groan in a foggy place in the back of my mind. It was almost as if I could look down and see myself. I had traveled so far from this room I was almost a bystander.
I felt his lips on the swollen side of my face but could not will my body to turn from him.
"Now that the fun part is over, I get to enjoy a few last moments with you before we make our escape to somewhere more private." In my cloudy fog I thought I understood that he had planned to take me somewhere with him.
I heard the sound of a resistancless tearing in my ears, not necessarily coming from outside but coming from within my body. I felt warmness dripping down my side but did not bother to look. I had no fight in me. He won, and would continue to win despite my best tries to fend him off. So I disappeared again. This place might have been darker than floating above my defiled body.
I saw my mother pleading with a tall man, that he was drunk, that he needed to lie down. He didn't lie down, he came upon her and hit her once in the stomach as she hit the ground he slammed a solid kick into her ribs. Rather than hearing her cries in my mind, I was dizzy with the pain, like I could feel her pain in my own body. I had relieved that moment so many times that I now had assimilated the pain as well.
I heard a loud bang and assumed it was when my rather had finally fell down drunk. It wasn't his fault my mother had said, the drinking disease was in his blood. This loud bang was accompanied by many distant voices, like those of the ghosts of battered women before us. We were a team now, my mother and I. We had too many things in common. I felt coldness at my throat and assumed that a chill had spilled into the room, like the December night that I witnessed him hitting her. I heard three loud noises ring out and felt a warm spray hit my body. It was the spring rains, coming to wash everything away the May that he died. It was cleansing.
I felt like I was on a ship. Rocking back and forth, hitting a few waves of resistance. My eyes fluttered open and all I saw was blond hair and dark brown eyes. It was a fleeting glimpse of someone I did not know.
The ship quickly turned into a rocket. Barreling into space with its rocket fuel making a terrible repetitive siren as it burned out in the atmosphere. There were bright lights all over and so many voices that I couldn't place. My body was exhausted trying to find a connection to each voice.
My brain was so foggy that I could hard
ly keep track of my own thoughts. I tried to open my eyes but every attempt made me more tired than the last.
Finally, after a long dream about a castle, all made of marble I heard something that I could finally place. A soft, smooth voice of happiness. I didn't know if it was happy but it made me feel it.
I finally willed my eyes to open, and it took many minutes to get them to focus on what was in front of me. First it was lights, then it was a peach color directly across from me. Lastly it was green. All I could see was sparkling green. I realized the sparkling greens were talking, and I willed my ears to open, to come back to me so I could hear what the green was saying. Slowly the fog started to dissipate and I heard words being said.
"Madison baby, please look at me, say something. I need to hear your voice." I felt pressure on my right hand and tried to apply some pressure of my own. The fog had lifted enough for me to be able to place the smoothness and the green.
"Connor." It was barely a whisper but it was loud in my own head.
"Oh God, thank you." I watched him for a moment as his memory started coming back to me.
"What's wrong?" I did not understand why he was crying, I could not see anything sad about him.
"Nothing at all, you are ok. Everything is fine now."
I took inventory of my body as each limb and nerve started coming back with feeling this time. I wanted to sit up so I could regard him more fully but every ounce of my body kept me down. The pain was excruciating and I lost that battle.
"No, no, lay down. Don't move. You're hurt Madison baby. Really bad but you'll be ok. You just need to rest and be ok for me ok sweetheart? I mean you've really got to be ok, for me." Not only did my body hurt but my heart had pain seeing his face in such a dramatic frown. It was that frown I fell asleep to.
The next time I woke I felt noticeably better. My head become defogged much more quickly. I picked my head off the pillow an inch to see a mass curled up in the car in the corner of the room. I groaned as I had to lower my neck back down. I heard shuffling and Connor was by my side in a few seconds.
"Good morning baby, how are you?" He stroked my hair and it was the best feeling I could ever remember.
"I feel ok, what happened?" I needed to move, my body was screaming for stretching or adjusting my position. I slowly tried to sit up, just to be more upright than I currently was. Connor hesitantly let me use him to push off of, cautioning me to be careful and move slowly. Once I felt more comfortable I realized how much energy that had drained. I felt like I was breathing hard just from that small movement.
"You were really hurt baby. I was so scared that you weren't ok. You have lots of things wrong with you but they are getting better."
Though it was foggy I remembered that snarling, smug face. "What's wrong with me?"
"You've been sleeping for a few days baby. Doctor said you had a pretty bad concussion, a couple of cracked ribs, they had to stitch up your side, your shoulder had been dislocated. Your face is pretty banged up on the one side and you had a cut on your neck. But you're ok. You look so much better today."
"What happened?" I knew I didn't want to hear it, but I also knew it was going to have to come sometime.
"Well he was there sweetheart. He managed to find you alone." Connor's story was cut off the the doctor walking in.
"Ms. Branson, it is great to see you up. How are you feeling today?" His eyes roamed to the machines around me as he wrote on his clipboard.
"Sore." My voice was still weak but it was better than I remembered last time.
"I bet. You're doing remarkably well for someone in your situation. Unfortunately I do have to call the police department and let them know. They need a full statement from you so they can finish the case. Although it seems the defendant has been singing like a canary over at the station. Continue to rest and I'll check back later."
We waited for the doctor to leave and I eyed Connor.
"Madison, we don't need to do this. You're not well." I glared at Connor and he got the message. "He got you alone and he hurt you very badly. He hit your beautiful face several time, nearly busting bones and giving you a terrible concussion. He cut you down your side, you lost a lot of blood but they sewed you up. He cracked some of your ribs but thankfully nothing pierced a lunch. And he-." Connor rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
"I know, you don't have to say it." I did know, I remembered forcing myself to drift away from what was happening.
"I'm so sorry Madison, it's all my fault. I would have still been at work, I would have gotten to you faster than the cops. If I would have stayed, even a couple more hours I would have gotten the security company there to put up the keycard scanners to lock the doors. I'm sorry. I failed to keep you safe." He was pacing the room as he spoke.
At once the thought hit me, why he hadn't been there. "Connor, your dad, how is he?"
He stopped pacing and looked at me. "He is awake, they don't know the extent of the damage but they are keeping a close eye on him. He's safe. I had to get here for you, I knew something had happened from when we were on the phone. I immediately called the police. I paid Sarah, my dad's caretaker to sit with him, I had to see that you were ok."
He sat next to me on the bed and gave me a soft kiss on the lips. "I'm so sorry Madison, I didn't do what I was supposed to. I didn't make sure he never hurt you again. I hate myself for it Madison."
I shook my head. "Stop. What's done is done. We'll deal with what happened but you cannot blame yourself. It had nothing to do with you. I don't blame you at all. It's my fault for getting involved with him."
I saw the anger creep into Connor's eyes. "Madison you did nothing wrong. I never want to hear you blame yourself again. That asshole is going to rot in prison for what he's done to you. I'm making sure of it. My lawyers are already on it. This is not your fault and I won't listen to it."
I nodded at him. I hadn't seen him that fired up before.
"Your mom was here, she ran home to shower and get some rest. She was very worried about you too. She just about ran down to the jail to kill the bastard herself."
That I knew to be true, she nearly did the same after the first time and no doubt a stay in the hospital would have pushed her to it.
Connor sat on the edge of my bed and held my hand as I closed my eyes to get some rest before she returned.
Chapter 18
"Where are we going? You know you were supposed to get off at the last exit."
"Was I? Oops." Connor said dryly, looking at me from the corner of his eye.
Connor had picked me up from the hospital, a week and a half after I had been put in. I finally got the go ahead to go home and he wasted no time making arrangements to take me there. He and I had spent a lot of time in the hospital talking about the whole ordeal. We were in a really good place with each other and I felt at peace with what had happened. Maybe at peace wasn't quite true, but I couldn't dwell on the whole ordeal.
We ventured further and further from the city, I had no clue what Connor had in store but it apparently wasn't to take me home. The whole ride he had one hand holding mine and the other on the wheel. The whole thing brought me back to the weekend we had spent together. That sense of normalcy had returned except this time it felt we were twenty years older and more mature.
One Connor pulled off the thruway, he wove around a few neighborhoods. Finally, I knew where we were going when he pulled down the old street. We drove up the vaguely familiar driveway. The view this time was vastly different from the first. The white house had a new coat of paint, a new railing around the outside of the wrap-around porch. I saw a hanging bench swing near the front door. The front door was painted a deep hunter green as well as the shutters.
Connor pulled up close to the walkway and quickly jumped from the truck. He ran around and opened my door. Since I've known him, Connor has treated me like I was glass. Now that was ten times worse. I was not only made of glass, but this glass had been broken and was now barely being held together
by still wet glue.
Until You Believe Me Page 12